Frances Marion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Frances Marion | |
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| Born | Marion Benson Owens November 18, 1888 San Francisco, California,  United States |
| Died | May 12, 1973 (aged 84) |
| Occupation | Writer, Screenwriter |
| Spouse(s) | Wesley de Lappe(?-?) Robert Pike (?-?) Fred Thomson (1919 - 1928) (his death) George W. Hill (1930-1933) (divorce) |
Frances Marion (November 18, 1888[1] - May 12, 1973) was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the twentieth century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos
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[edit] Biography
Born Marion Benson Owens in San Francisco, California, she worked as a journalist and served overseas as a combat correspondent during World War I. On her return home, she moved to Los Angeles and was hired as a writing assistant by "Lois Weber Productions", a film company owned and operated by pioneer female film director Lois Weber.
As "Frances Marion", she wrote many scripts for actress/filmmaker Mary Pickford, including Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and The Poor Little Rich Girl, as well as scripts for numerous other successful films of the 1920s and 1930s. She became the first female to win an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1930 for the film The Big House, she received the Academy Award for Best Story for The Champ in 1932. She was credited with writing 300 scripts and over 130 produced films. She directed and occasionally appeared in some of Mary Pickford's early movies.
She was married four times, first to Wesley de Lappe, and later to Robert Pike, both prior to changing her name. In 1919, she wed Fred Thomson, who co-starred with Mary Pickford in The Love Light in 1921. After Thomson's unexpected death in 1928, she married director George W. Hill in 1930, but that marriage ended in divorce in 1933.
For many years she was under contract to MGM Studios but independently wealthy, she left Hollywood in 1946 to devote more time to writing stage plays and novels.
Frances Marion published a memoir Off With Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood in 1972 and died in 1973.
[edit] Afterward
Author Cari Beauchamp wrote Without Lying Down: Frances Marion And The Power Of Women In Hollywood in 1997. A New York Times "Notable Book." In 2000, with support from the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the book was made into a television documentary which aired on Turner Classic Movies.
[edit] Film Credits
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[edit] Published Works
- Minnie Flynn NY:Boni and Liveright, (1925)
- The Secret Six. NY:Grosset & Dunlap, (1931)
- Valley People. NY:Reynal & Hitchock (1935)
- How to Write and Sell Film Stories. NY:Covici - Friede, (1937)
- Molly, Bless Her. NY:Grosset & Dunlap, (1937)
- Westward The Dream Garden City:Doubleday, (1948)
- The Passions of Linda Lane. NY: Diversey Publications, (1949)
- The Powder Keg. Boston:Little, Brown & Co., (1953)
- Off With Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood. NY:The MacMillan Company, (1972)
[edit] External links
- Frances Marion at the Internet Movie Database
- Frances Marion at the TCM Movie Database
- Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Power of Women in Hollywood at IMDB
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
- ^ Beauchamp. 1997
[edit] Bibliography
- Beauchamp, C. Marion, Frances. American National Biography Online, February 2000.
- Beauchamp, Cari (1997). Without lying down: Frances Marion and the powerful women of early Hollywood. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21492-7.
| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Marion, Frances |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Owens, Marion Benson |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Writer, Screenwriter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 18, 1888 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | San Francisco, California, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 12, 1973 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
